


The House is on Fire

by Stormregard



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Awkward Yasha (Critical Role), Could Be Canon, F/F, Femslash February, Gay Disaster Beauregard (Critical Role), Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-28 16:51:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17791133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stormregard/pseuds/Stormregard
Summary: I've been loving you forever, But I never knew your name.So Yasha knew. Out of all the possibilities in front of her, Yasha knowing her secret had not entered into her musings. She wasn’t prepared.





	The House is on Fire

_If the house is on fire_

_You gonna run for the door_

Yasha was afraid. It's an uncommon feeling. She lives strictly by the rule of going into battle with a healthy amount of fire in her soul, balanced by the tiniest kernel of fear. Fear kept your emotions sharp. It brought your reactions to the surface. It even seemed to help her Rage.

But right now, she knows she's in trouble because she isn't afraid. She is resigned. It's far more deadly than fear. The dead inside her. The shadows. She hadn't felt this way since losing her. Not since she was a child and forced into the battle ring.

The calm that has overwhelmed her senses was not pain or anguish or anger. It was just emptiness. And she cannot find a way to escape it. Not even here, standing beside these people, the ones she keeps coming back to. The first people she's come back to since...

"Yasha!" Beau called again. Her body reacted, sent her into action at the sound of her name. She whirled fast and lethal, taking down three gnolls before she'd even taken a new breath. But it felt like _nothing_.

Later, as they cleaned up and settled in, she found herself alone in a small, damp bed staring at the ceiling. She knew why she was broken, why she had fallen apart. The knowing just didn't help. Instead, she felt it welling up inside of her again; the desire to follow him, to leave, to search. She was fighting it for all she was worth; Yasha was very much done with leaving people behind. But that tick in her heart and the tug in her abdomen was only ignorable for so long.

_If the door is on fire_

_You gonna kneel on the floor_

Beauregard played the long game — most of her bravado was real. She’d earned it the hard way, through tough fights and gained knowledge, through expertly contained emotions and a genuine personality of not giving a fuck. At the same time, though, it was important to her that had her share of heartbreak that weighed her down in the quiet hours. She didn't think about it, didn't let it render her incapable of speech or action. Still, she'd been hurt.

The way Beau thought about it, it hardly mattered how tough you were or how easily you brushed off emotions and slights; she was human. She _had_ feelings. People fucked with them more often than she let on. Her father, as a starting point, but that was hardly original. It was harder when her chosen companions found ways to stab beneath her carefully crafted armour and candour.

Caleb, for example, had found the way to wound her more than once. By being himself. By not trusting her. She knew his game, understood his motivators; she shared quite a bit of his mistrust and scepticism. It didn’t make it hurt less when he didn’t choose them back, when he backpedalled on the Nein or created reasons for screwing them over out of self-preservation alone. The day she’d finally snapped at him still rang in her mind at night when she was tossing and turning her way through a restless night’s sleep.

Jester never meant to hurt her; she was full of smiles and kind words, compliments that Beau was positive she didn’t deserve. And sometimes, without her meaning to, a tiny sliver of this positivity would needle its way beneath Beau’s skin and cause her pain. For the rest of the day, she’d wonder—unintentionally—if she’d responded to Jester’s affection the right way. If she’d been kind enough to others to deserve the love of the blue teifling.

Molly, when he’d been around, had been the least complicated of all of her newfound family; when he meant to hurt you, he showed it. When he didn’t, he explained himself and apologized without asking for anything in return. She hadn’t appreciated this enough about him at the time, and now he was gone. The transparency of Mollymauk was a rare gift. She missed it immensely.

Breaks in action were not her friend; she’d never admitted that to anyone, least of all herself, but it’s why she could always be counted on to escort Jester to another bakery or sneak Caleb into another library. She needed to keep moving, even if the goal was just cake.

Today, though, she also needed solitude. Her mind was playing tricks on her; she took her staff with her and told Fjord she’d meet him at the docks; confusingly, he did not question her. She took her cloak and headed to the roof. It wasn’t peaceful, not the way the ocean had been, but it was high and it was solitary. It took her ages to calm her mind enough to even consider that she might have lost her way. It wasn’t exactly meditation; she wasn’t foolish enough to think it was a good idea to try that again.

An hour passed as she watched the sun drift across the sky. The clay tiles beneath her grew warm and the heat of the day necessitated removing her cloak. She’d soon have to go down if she wanted to catch up with the group before they headed off. Noon, Fjord had arbitrarily decided.

Well trained reflexes had her crouching and ready to fight the moment she felt the shift in the air behind her.

“Hey,” Yasha’s soft voice muttered.

“One day I’m going to accidentally kill you,” Beau grumbled, settling back onto her bottom.

“I was about to say, ‘it’s me’, but you didn’t give me the chance. I should wear a bell,” Yasha replied, the lightness in her voice both teasing and accusatory.

Beau turned to study her face, but there was no point. Some people probably found it possible to read emotion on the Aasimar’s face, but that certainly didn’t include Beau, who found it hard enough to discern what people were feeling when they were blatantly yelling at her. Yasha frowned when she noticed Beau’s gaze.

“Fjord sent me. He said you had decided not to go to with them this morning. Seemed worried.”

“I’m fine,” Beau said quickly.

Yasha’s small smile returned. “Why do you do that? You are a very bad liar,” she teased, unmistakable this time.

Beau couldn’t help but return the grin. “Fine, but I’m not going to talk about it.”

Yasha nodded and settled down beside Beau, her hulking form impossibly graceful on the clay tiles. Her stole was missing, an uncommon occurrence that made sense in the warm sun. Her hair was also braided down one side of her neck, the dreadlocks and tattered ends looped into an asymmetrical mass that reminded her pleasantly of tangled kelp. Beau lifted an eyebrow at the style, somehow sensing she didn’t even need to ask.

“Jester,” Yasha laughed, tugging on the braid, almost seeming self-conscious. “She found out I haven’t been sleeping all that well and… well, apparently we now have sleepovers.”

Beau laughed. “That is very Jester-like. Not sleeping?”

“Not talking about it,” Yasha returned, arching an eyebrow back at Beau, who didn’t take the bait. She wrapped her arms around her knees and gazed back at the horizon.

For long moments, they sat this way. Quiet and lost in their independent thoughts.

“Do you…” Beau began. “Do you regret it?”

“I have many regrets,” Yasha whispered. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

That was what Beau had been afraid of. Specifics were not her strong suit.

“You know,” Beau repeated, gesturing vaguely between them. “Given what you...you told… I know they weren’t supposed to say anything but--”

“Relax,” Yasha implored, reaching out a hand and placing it lightly on Beau’s shoulder. “If I’d wanted a secret, I wouldn’t have told anyone. Least of all Jester. She’s too enamoured by you to really keep anything from you.”

A spark of annoyance blazed through Beau; the implication that Jester wasn’t trustworthy wasn’t fair, not coming from Yasha. She shook it off but Yasha cleared her throat. “Beauregard, I didn’t mean—”

“It’s fine,” Beau said gruffly.

“I don’t,” Yasha continued. “I don’t regret it. I’m… the story is complicated. I lose people.” “We all lose people.”

“We don’t all dismiss that as easily as you,” Yasha murmured, withdrawing her hand.

Beau bristled. The anger was back; at Yasha, sure, but it was more complicated than that. “Are you leaving then?” Beau hissed.

“What? No. Why would I—”

“That’s why you came to find me, isn’t it? So you can leave. What, do you need me to hold onto something for you?”

“Beauregard, you are really going to have to stop this if we are going to remain friends,” Yasha said starkly. Beau glared; it was the most direct Yasha had been with her in weeks.

“Stop _what,”_ Beau seethed. “Believing everyone is going to leave you because you’re _you_.”

_You get down low enough_

_You learn to love the flame_

Yasha knew what she had said. And she knew _what_ was going to happen when she said it. She didn’t for one moment regret it. She’d sought out Beau the moment she realized she was most likely on her own. She hadn’t actually spoken to Fjord, instead had watched the group depart from the inn that morning, lacking their troublesome monk. She’d waited until nearly noon to interfere with Beau’s solitude.

The reckless spark that she felt heading up onto the roof brought her untold joy; feeling, at long last, after weeks of absent fear, absent sadness. Reckless anger was exactly what she needed.

Beau wound up in a very obvious way. Obvious, perhaps, because Yasha was so used to fighting side by side with her. She had certainly never seemed predictable while fighting countless foes. Yasha saw the direction of the punches, of the whirling kick, before Beau even left her crouch, but she did not duck. Did not flinch. She merely held her ground, her arms flying up to her face protectively.

The flurry of blows still caught her in the collar bone, then her stomach, the kick pulling her legs from beneath her body so that she landed flat on her back and found she was staring up at Beau, whose face had gone almost purple in her instant fury.

“Hit me back,” she grimaced.

“No,” Yasha replied, rolling out from under Beau and standing up.

Beau spiralled left and was on her feet again a moment later, arms up and at the ready.

“Hit. Me. Back. It’s been coming for weeks.”

“No, it hasn’t,” Yasha shrugged. “You’ve been _avoiding_ me for weeks. Since I told them about...about her.”

“Her name, Yasha.”

Beau’s hands had suddenly fallen to her sides in an instant. Her pain was etched into her face. Yasha knew better than to believe Beau’s facade of strength and carelessness. The woman was hurt. Hurt by Yasha’s past hurts by secrets unintentionally kept between them. When Yasha had first noticed, there had been no guilt associated with the recognition. It wasn’t her place; they were not in a relationship, the sex was not promising anything more, and Beauregard was hardly one to judge others for being reserved and secretive.

“Yasha, say her name,” Beau repeated, watching the waffling on her face.

“I don’t need to,” Yasha whispered, her fists clenched by her sides. “I don’t need to because I am never without her.”

“You should have just told me to back off!” Beau yelled. “I didn’t need to be so… forward. We could have just…”

Yasha laughed, the cruelness of the sound surprising her. “Just what, Beauregard? Just fucked? Would that have worked with me, like it did with Keg? Would you have just let me use you and turn around? Are you really that callous?”

“You know I am,” Beau seethed.

“I know you like people to think you are.”

 

_I've been loving you forever_

_But I never knew your name_

So Yasha knew. Out of all the possibilities in front of her, Yasha knowing her secret had not entered into her musings. She wasn’t prepared.

“You seem surprised,” Yasha said, stepping towards her in the most gentle way she could possibly move. “But I don’t know why you would be. You’re stubborn and sometimes a bit careless, sure, but you wear your heart on your sleeve, Beauregard. Anyone who’s known you for five minutes knows that.”

She advanced again but Beau crossed her arms tightly across her chest and scowled at the roof tiles.

“And I’ve known you a lot longer than five minutes,” Yasha concluded, reaching out to Beau and tucking a rogue piece of hair behind her ear. Her hand rested across Beau’s cheek and stayed there.

Beau’s heart stuttered and her chest ached; the feelings decided it for her. She jerked her head away from Yasha and began a careful retreat toward the window used to climb onto the roof. The sigh that followed her from Yasha was gentle, nearly silent, but definitely weary.

“Where are you going, Beau?” she asked gently.

“To meet up with the others,” Beau returned, gesturing to the sky above her before dropping down to the balcony. “It’s almost noon.”

More graceful than she should have been, as always, Yasha’s legs appeared beside Beau’s head as she sat on the roof. “So we’re just going to leave this conversation halfway through. Again.”

“There _is_ no halfway, Yasha. It’s fine. I love you, you don’t love me. I’ll get over it. I’ll move on. Forgive me for the next few months. You’re fucking hot and I’m bad at controlling my face. There. Done. Happy?”

“You’re so quick to assume I don’t love you,” Yasha said sadly.

Beau ignored her and retreated into the inn, the window of the bedroom that she’d been sharing with Jester still ajar. She was quickly followed, but she didn’t pause in her attempt to escape. Suddenly, a hand shot out, gripping her upper arm. She tried to evade the grasp, succeeding at the last second only by whirling away.

“You made it clear you didn’t want this,” Beau accused. “I get why now. It’s fine. Don’t worry about me. I’m sorry I made things complicated.”

“They were always going to be complicated, but that doesn’t mean I don’t…” Yasha broke off and scrubbed at her face with her hands.

Quicker than breathing, Beauregard found herself thrown back against the wall, crushed up against it in fact; her skin was still so warm from sitting in the sun, and Yasha was not. When her hands rested on Beau’s exposed stomach, a violent shiver went through her. The kiss that followed was violent and perfect, lacking any restraint.

“I can love more than one person. I…” Yasha rested her head against Beau’s. “I’ll always love her. I think I loved Molly, though I had no idea what to do with that. You don’t have to stop feeling just because sometimes it hurts. I learned that a long time ago. It’s not safe, Beau. It’s not...strong. It’s just lonely.”

Beau cleared her throat. “I don’t want you to forget her.”

“I can’t. She’s here,” Yasha murmured, pulling Beau’s hand onto her chest. “But there’s room in there for more. Just be patient with me.”

“I swear I’ve been trying,” Beau insisted.

Yasha smiled sadly and leaned forward again. Without hesitating any further, she lifted Beau’s not-insubstantial weight like she was made of feathers, was carrying her more gently than Beau had ever been handled until her back hit the soft wool of the bed.

“They’ll leave without us,” Beau protested weakly.

“They wouldn’t dare,” Yasha whispered in her ear.


End file.
